July 2, 2016
Letters, Missouri

Time for ‘facts’ about wind power

The Leader | June 30, 2016 | www.clintoncountyleader.com

In a May 21st letter to the NewsPress, NextEra manager Jeremy Ferrell encouraged residents to get the facts about wind energy, rather than hearken to ‘myths and fears’.

He writes: “Never has a member of the public been injured because of one of our turbines.”

Facts: 1) In April 2014, four men in a small aircraft impacted an unlit NextEra turbine, resulting in their untimely deaths. Their ages were 25, 30, 38, and 33. Two had been married less than a year. 2) When Dave and Stephanie Hulthen (IL) shockingly discovered their home had been rendered uninhabitable by NextEra turbines, they began warning others. NextEra finally bought the Hulthens property with a gag order stipulation. This effectively removed the Hulthens as witnesses to the detriment of such turbines. Being forced to relocate from a home/community is definitely ‘injurious’ in my opinion. It certainly would be to me.

Secondly, Mr. Ferrell writes that large sums of money will come to the community via tax revenues ‘over the life of the project’.

Facts: 1) In Gilford Township (MI), NextEra is challenging how much taxes it should pay and how the value of wind turbines should have been determined. The case is on the Tax Tribunal docket for later this year. 2) In late 2013, NextEra filed [tax] appeals for its Tuscola Bay Wind Complex in two townships in Tuscola County, Michigan. (Takeaway: Promises of payment, made in the project’s planning stages, are not written in stone to be paid out after.)

Lastly, Mr. Ferrell cites “peer-reviewed scientific studies [have] found no link between wind power and adverse health effects.”

Fact: If one wants to cite ‘peer reviewed studies’ there are volumes on the side of wind opponents. You won’t find these quoted on the NextEra website, though that is where Mr. Ferrell suggests you should go to be educated.

In closing, quoting Paul Crow, (PA) : “Everywhere the wind turbine companies go, they really follow the same procedure. They go into an area, very often a small town, and work very, very closely with individual residents to sign up for turbines, promising they will make lots of money. They try to get things moving before anyone really knows what is happening. They expect to run into a combination of no knowledge, lack of opposition, and local officials uninformed.”

It is past time to get the real facts about wind power. One source is www.wind-watch.org.

Glenda Aughinbaugh,

Stewartsville, MO


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2016/07/02/time-for-facts-about-wind-power/